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May 23, 2012 |
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Image:Plath Self-portrait.jpg|thumb|250px|right|A self-portrait circa 1951.Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an United States|American poet, novelist, short story writer, and essayist. Most famous as a poet, Plath is also known for The Bell Jar, her semi-autobiographical novel detailing her struggle with clinical depression|depression. Since her suicide, she has become an icon for many. Born in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts (a section of Boston, Massachusetts|Boston) to Germany|German immigrant parents, Plath showed early promise, publishing her first poem at the age of 8. Her father, Otto, a college professor and noted authority on the subject of bees, died of an embolism following surgery(complications from undiagnosed diabetes) around the same time, on October 5, 1940. She continued to try to publish poems and short stories in American magazines, and achieved marginal success. Sylvia suffered from severe bipolar disorder throughout her adult life. She had entered Smith College on a scholarship in 1950, but in her junior year she made the first of her suicide attempts. She later depicted her breakdown through the summer and winter of 1953 in the autobiographical novel|semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar. She was committed to a mental institution (McLean Hospital), and seemed to make an acceptable recovery, graduating from Smith summa cum laude in 1955. Plath earned a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Cambridge, where she continued writing poetry, occasionally publishing her work in the student newspaper Varsity. At Cambridge she met England|English poet Ted Hughes. They were married on June 16, 1956 with Plath's mother in attendance. Plath and Hughes spent from July 1957 to October 1959 living and working in the United States. Plath taught at Smith. They then moved to Boston where Plath sat in on seminars with Robert Lowell. This course was to have a profound influence on her work. Also attending the seminars was Anne Sexton. At this time Plath and Hughes also met, for the first time, William Merwin|W. S. Merwin, who admired their work and remained a lifelong friend. On hearing that Plath was pregnant, they moved back to the United Kingdom. She and Hughes lived in London for a while and then settled in North Tawton, a small market town in Devon. She published her first collection of poetry, The Colossus, in England in 1960. In February 1961 she suffered a miscarriage. A number of poems refer to this event. The marriage met with difficulties and they were separated less than two years after the birth of their first child. Their separation was mainly due to the affair that Hughes had with fellow poet Assia Wevill. Plath returned to London with their children, Frieda Hughes|Frieda and Nicholas. She rented a flat in a house where W. B. Yeats once lived; Plath was extremely pleased with this and considered it a good omen as she began legal separation proceedings. The winter of 1962/1963 was very harsh. On February 11, 1963, ill and low on money, Plath asphyxiated herself with coal gas from an oven. Before she died, Plath laid out cookies and milk for her children, who slept above on the second floor. She is buried in the churchyard at Heptonstall, West Yorkshire. Hughes became the executor of Plath???s personal and literary estates. He destroyed the final volume of Plath???s journal, detailing their time together. In 1982, Plath became the first poet to win a Pulitzer Prize posthumously (for The Collected Poems). Many critics, often feminist, accused Hughes of attempting to control the publications for his own ends. Hughes denied this, although he cut a deal with Plath's mother Aurelia when she tried to block publication of her daughter's more controversial works in the United States. In his last collection, Birthday Letters, Hughes broke his silence about Plath. The cover artwork was done by Frieda. While critics initially responded favorably to Plath's first book, The Colossus, it has also been described as conventional and lacking the drama of her later works. The extent of Hughes' influence has been a topic of great debate. Plath's poems are in her own voice and the similarities between the two poets' works are slight. The poems in Ariel (Plath)|Ariel mark a departure from her earlier work into a more Confessionalism (poetry)|confessional area of poetry. It is likely the teachings of Lowell played a part in this shift. The impact of Ariel was dramatic, with its frank descriptions of mental illness with autobiographical poems such as Daddy (poem)|Daddy. Plath's work has been associated with Anne Sexton. Despite criticism and biographies published after her death, the debate about Plath's work resembles a struggle between readers who side with her and readers who side with Hughes. An indication of the level of bitterness that some people have directed at Hughes can be seen in the history of people chiseling the word Hughes off her gravestone. Her headstone has subsequently been rendered more 'tamper proof.' Poetry
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Category:1932 births|Plath, Sylvia Category:1963 deaths|Plath, Sylvia Category:American essayists|Plath, Sylvia Category:American novelists|Plath, Sylvia Category:American poets|Plath, Sylvia Category:German-Americans|Plath, Sylvia Category:Suicides|Plath, Sylvia Category:Women poets|Plath, Sylvia Category:Women writers|Plath, Sylvia Category:Writers who committed suicide|Plath, Sylvia da:Sylvia Plath de:Sylvia Plath el:???????????? ???????? es:Sylvia Plath eo:Sylvia PLATH fa:???????????? ???????? fr:Sylvia Plath he:???????????? ????????' ja:??????????????????????????? nl:Sylvia Plath pl:Sylvia Plath pt:Sylvia Plath sv:Sylvia Plath This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Sylvia Plath".
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